"...the hills of western Maine,.....where the subtle matters and the spectacular distracts."Bernd Heinrich in A Year in the Maine Woods

Monday, March 8, 2010

Mt. Chocorua--March 2010

From many of the summits that I reached while completing the list of New Hampshire 4000 footers, I would notice an interesting mountain to the south and say "What's that peak?" and Charlie would reply, "Chocorua". Hmmm, I would think--that mountain seems to look different from every angle but from every angle it looks intriguing. Eventually, I stopped asking what the funny looking peak was and just assumed that the one that caught my eye was Chocorua. Among the White Mountain hiking community, Chocorua is a name that comes up repeatedly as a favorite summit--people hike it over and over and over and now I know why.

This past Saturday, along with Sally and Elise, I headed up the Champney Brook Trail to the summit. The snow was perfect and the air temperature was cool enough to keep the snow solid and our body temperatures comfortable but high enough that we could retain feeling in our fingers and toes. The trail follows along and climbs above the Champney Brook with a side trail leading to the Champney Falls. We saw ice climbers heading to the falls and decided to take that detour on our descent.We estimated that the snow was at least 5 feet deep based on the fact that the trail signs were right at our feet level. Sally climbed up on one of the signs for a photo shoot.

The trail took a turn to the west away from the brook and started a series of switchbacks which led us into an area just below the summit. The wind was pretty strong in the open but the views were spectacular.

We headed back into the trees to find a place to eat our lunch before heading down. Our descent went really fast and in some of the steepest parts I used the slide on your bottom and pretend you did it on purpose method. Tried and true.

We made it back to the s ide trail to the waterfall and tramped through some fresh snow in order to meet up with the ice climbers. It looked like an ice climbing class with lots of people climbing on the frozen waterfall. Good clean fun. Another great day in the mountains feeling like the luckiest person in the world

Just came across your blog the other day but had to dash so I'm back to say what a great day you had!! I remember those days of hiking camping and adventours in the mountains with the family. I am not sure where Mt.C. is but I'm going to look it up!!

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and I live in a small town in the mountains of western Maine. My stories are about all that is around me--family and nature and mountains and hiking and books and food and anything else that catches my fancy. Welcome.